As if she, too, were curious about the letter’s contents.
Mariah turned the letter over in her hands.
She didn’t recognize the seal. A tree pressed into mahogany wax, branches and roots woven together. If she had to guess its origins, though, it would be the jungle kingdom of Vatha.
She tore through the seal, unrolling the scroll and revealing Ciana’s flowing script. Emotion surged up Mariah’s throat at the familiar scrawl.
She always knew Ciana would be the one to do it. Always knew she could count on her best friend. She couldn’t wait to hug her again and share a glass of wine.
Something that was now so much closer to reality than it had been just a day ago.
With a held breath, Mariah started to read.
M—
I hope you’re safe. Sebastian and I found it. A Vathan historian was present at the gods’ ceremony and saw the whole thing. There was a page missing, so we don’t know how it works, but the weapon is your dagger. The one with the dragon-wings on the cross guard. We are as sure of it as we’ve ever been.
We will stay in Vatha until we hear from you. We are comfortable and safe, but we miss you.
Love,
Cee
The earth beneath Mariah’s feet tilted, the buzzing of her magic filling her veins and burning in her ears. She let Andrian take the note from her, arms slackening at her sides.
As if moving on instinct alone, her fingers wrapped around the worn leather pommel on her thigh, slowly sliding the honed, chipped blade free. It gleamed in the moonlight, the dark wings on the cross guard reflecting the muted glow from the Marks on her hands.
All this time. All this fucking time, and she’d had the answer—everything she needed—right on her thigh. Ciana said they didn’t know how it worked, but did that matter? It was a dagger. Mariah had been handling daggers since she could walk.
However impossible it might be, she had the weapon that could kill a god gripped in the palm of her hand.
Andrian finished reading, cursing softly. He folded the note, slipping it into his pocket. His tanzanite eyes burned her skin, but she couldn’t pull her attention from the dagger in her hands.
“I should’ve known,” she murmured softly into the night.
Her draw to the weapon had been unexplainable. It was old and battered and unremarkable, but she’d never felt settled without it—not since that day she’d stolen it back from Donnet’s treasure room. Her mother had been so insistent about Mariah retrieving it, no matter how dangerous it might’ve been to do so.
Somehow, Lisabel Salis had known the truth. Maybe this was even written somewhere in the Ginnelevé diary, another one of her ancestor’s forgotten secrets. Maybe if Mariah had only been strong enough to read every entry, she could have prevented so much loss.
It didn’t matter now.
Mariah met Andrian’s dark gaze. He watched her with a mix of concern, rage, and readiness.
“What now,nio?”
Her grip tightened around the dagger. Her mother’s dagger, her grandfather’s dagger. A weapon passed down through countless generations. An impossible twist of fate that landed it in her hands, at this exact moment, when it would finally be used for what it was forged to do.
“Now,” she said, “we kill a god.”
Chapter 73
“Thank you all for meeting with me on such short notice.” Andrian’s voice echoed off the temple chamber’s stone walls.
The four council members, seated around the table, gave him polite smiles and nods.
Andrian wasn’t particularly concerned with the council, though. They were here as a formality, really. His attention focused instead on the four battle-hardened warriors, faces weathered and worn with scars—both externally and the kind that couldn’t be seen.
TheVigamor. Leuxrith had no army, only warriors. TheVigamorwere chosen every ten years as the four best amongst their people, responsible for keeping Leuxrith safe from all enemies who may lurk across the borders.
